Art

Gryphon House: The Homegrown Preschool {Crew Review}

August 2, 2013 by Dana

Gryphon House Publishers graciously offered the Schoolhouse Review crew their choice of two products for this review: Global Art and The Homegrown Preschooler. I must say I was extremely torn over which I would chose. Art is a HUGE deal in our house but so is preschool learning for my younger two.

Weighing my choices, I chose to review The Homegrown Preschooler: Teaching Your Kids in the Places They Live, which actually went very well with my last review, Circle Time by Kendra Fletcher {Read that review here!}. The books complemented each other well for our lessons but enough about that.

The Homegrown Preschooler was a great reminder of many of the concepts I have previously used in our homeschooling. It gives a great explanation of using play and hands-on activities for active lessons with younger children. The Homegrown Preschooler gives examples throughout the book of activities, ideas and games that can be used with children of any age to develop their learning and life skills.

This 204 page book is packed with beautiful images of children engaging in various activities. This fully-colored guide for “Teaching You Kids in the Places They Live”, is jam-packed full with activities dealing with math, science, reading, and much more. It includes great meal planning recipes for kids along with great recipes for play dough and other useful preschool tools.

The Homegrown Preschooler guides you in turning your home into an environment in which your children can learn. This book teaches the parent how to use the things that are available to them to bring learning home, and how to create a safe and educational place for the learning to be done in. Preschool is about play and fun and all the things that children love to do!

Inspirational stories can be found throughout this book from the authors and others who have been there done that. Fingerplays, songs and other fun activities are shared for you to utilize in your own preschool environment. There’s also a great section of printables and design instructions in the back of the book for your personal use.

The Homegrown Preschooler is written for parents of preschoolers between the ages of one and five. I chose to read and use this book with my five year old, who is a bit old for some of the activities. We were able to use much of the books suggestions though since Laycie is slightly delayed in learning due to her Epilepsy.

After reading this book, I decided making my own play dough doesn’t sound too bad. I also started using more hands-on elements with Laycie, creating a few sensory bins using toys, rice and other things we have around our house. Some of these sensory play times have also made it into our bath where Laycie enjoys making a mess and then washing it up, teaching her the skills of homekeeping as she works.

Many of the suggestions in the book, are things we have been doing a long time. We work together and have Circle Times and field trips that allow our family to bond and socialize. We clean together too, learning skills from one another as we work. Sometimes I even let each child teach another the skills they are good at.

The Homegrown Preschooler is a great book for any parent with a young child. I know I will be pulling it out in the future as Jackson grows and I am in need of a reminder for activities to do with him. This book will be beneficial for years to come as it teaches you skills and techniques that can really be used throughout the child’s younger years.

The Homegrown Preschooler is available from Gyphon House for $29.95 plus shipping. For more reviews of The Homegrown Preschooler, please click the banner below!

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See The Light Paper Jungle {Crew Review}

June 5, 2013 by Dana

See The Light: Drawing Children to Him is a video art curriculum like no other. See The Light makes Art easy, even for the most challenged artist. See The Light, truly brings Art to life.

See The Light is a Christian Art curriculum. It focuses on teaching the student art principles while also teaching them the to see the beauty of God’s creations. We chose to review See The Light Paper Jungle for this review. I chose this because I know my budding artist thoroughly enjoys working with paper in her artwork. Paper Jungle allowed her to do this, while learning new techniques to use on her own.

When this video program disk arrived in our mail box, I wasted no time handing it over to Emmalee. I knew she would get started right away and she wasted no time in rushing to the bedroom to watch this DVD on her PlayStation 2. It wasn’t long before she came running back to gather the necessary supplies to work on her project.

Paper Jungle requires the student to have various materials for completion: construction paper of a particular size in various colors, scrapbooking or similar paper, white glue or a heavy duty glue stick, scissors, a Sharpie marker, a pencil, a white eraser, leaves to study and a photo of a wild animal of the artists choosing. Through watching the video the project comes to life, along with learning about the specialties of God’s creation. Paper Jungle focuses upon the artistic styling of Henry Rousseau.

The video is broken down into four lessons, which a student would normally follow along with once a week or so for Art Class. My artist is not so patient and had viewed the entire video in one day! She also completed over 75% of her project on this first day. It took a few hours the next day for her to fine tune it to what she wanted her finished product to be.

Before the week was up, my artist had created several masterpieces. Over the review period, she watched our Paper Jungle lesson video as many times as possible until she basically has it memorized. It wasn’t long before she began pushing her brother and sister to watch it, too. She led lessons with them on how to do the things she had learned through See The Light Paper Jungle and before long we had a ton of Paper Jungle projects being posted around the house.

See The Light has quickly become a favorite around our house and we look forward to purchasing more of these wonderful videos to use at home. My artist already has her eye on See The Light’s Horsing Around, as horses are also a favorite of hers. At $14.99 a video, See The Light won’t break the budget and will bring Art fun home for any artist.

ARTistic Pursuits {Crew Review}

March 12, 2013 by Dana

ARTistic Pursuits is our absolute FAVORITE curriculum for ART. We were introduced to this program last year through our participation on The Old Schoolhouse Review Crew and we completely fell in love with it. This year when we were offered the chance to review ARTistic Pursuits again, we jumped at the offer.

ARTistic Pursuits was created and written by Brenda Ellis to provide a way to learn the Arts, even when parents are not sure how to teach them at home. The individualized study ARTistic Pursuits provides allows students to create art in relation to their personal interests. The entirety of this program is family friendly, helping to build family relationships.

For this review, we were given ARTistic Pursuits Early Elementary K-3, Book Two. The K-3 books provide children with an introduction to the visual arts program. It teaches the student to view art through history with colorful illustrations and simple, easy to complete projects. This series provides a complete art history, examining the works of the great Masters through 36 projects which include drawing, painting, printmaking, sculpture and more.

The book itself is bound with a simple comb binding, allowing the book to be laid flat for lessons, with a clear plastic protective cover on the front and back. Provided first in the book, behind the Table of Contents, is a Materials list which tells the educator and student was is needed to complete all the lessons in the book. This list is not broken down into each lesson but is an overall list of what’s needed throughout the entirety of the book. An art kit is available on the ARTistic Pursuits website for each book available.

There are 36 lessons provided in ARTistic Pursuits Early Elementary K-3, Book Two. Each lesson provides a story, a synopsis of an Artist or an explanation of a piece of specific piece of Art. Artists like Cimabue, Van Eyck, Da Vinci, Durer and many more are introduced in this book. Each artist is expanded upon sharing the story of how they came to this type of career and the type of art they developed. The artwork is then broken down so that the student can create their own personal project after learning how the original artist did it.

Projects themselves begin by providing the type of art being done such as Watercolor Painting or Ink Printing. As the student works through the projects specifics like how to hold the paint brush, pressure, paper types, gluing, and more are discussed and put to use. Each lesson provides a new project to complete. Most projects are fairly simple and easily done by the average student.

During our review period, we were able to work through several of the activities in the book. We limited our lessons to 1 or 2 per week, allowing expansion on learning about the artist themselves through research on the internet. We took time to read about the artist with the lessons provided in the book and the art they created. Then we expanded on this by looking up both the artist and the art before completing the project suggested. It was extremely easy to build upon the provided lessons without distracting from them. They could very well be completed alone but since I have a budding artist, she insisted on learning more.

Most of the projects we completed were watercolors. She really enjoys this type of art because it allows her to express her self through one of her favorite mediums: paint. She was easily able to read and discuss lessons with me, then take those lessons and implement what she had learned on her own. Her brother and sister were also easily able to follow along and create their own projects.

I personally enjoyed learning along with her through the interesting stories provided in the lesson book. The book is extensive, but not overly drawn out so that the student gets a full ideal of the artist and the artwork itself but isn’t bored or exhausted by the end of the lesson. It worked well for us to do these lessons a few times a week.

ARTistic Pursuits is available online. The Early Elementary K-3 in 3rd edition series contains three separate books. Each book cost $47.95 per book. Book two is 85 pages long, with 36 lessons included and 175 illustrations throughout. It is also a non-consumable curriculum, allowing the owner to use it again and again with more than one child at a time.

For more reviews of ARTistic Pursuits, please visit the Schoolhouse Review Crew blog!

*Disclaimer – This product was provided to me free in exchange for my honest opinion shared in a blog post review. It was provided to me by ARTistic Pursuits and the Schoolhouse Review Crew. No money was exchanged during the process of this review. I am included this disclaimer in accordance of FTC regulations.

A Quick Look at Homeschooling {Homeschooling}

March 21, 2012 by Dana

So I need to make a blog post but I’m sitting here distractedly watching my sweet almost 4 year old cut up pieces of morning art project on my brand new couch, gritting my teeth hoping she doesn’t miss and cut a hole in it! She took it upon herself to make a beautiful chalk drawing on a sheet of yellow construction paper. Her new obsession is cutting paper into tiny little squares.

She amazes me. She is smart as can be. She even amazed her therapists yesterday as she worked through her tasks with ease and brilliance of memory. *Yep she gets that from me!* LOL

She’s finally finished her artwork and now she is carefully carrying it and her tiny squares back over to our dining table where she was supposed to be working in the first place. Her chalk rolls across the table and she runs to the other side to retrieve it. “I got it Mommy,” she excitedly tells me.

This kind of stuff is exactly why I choose to homeschool. If my children attended public school, I would completely miss out on these precious moments and they would miss out on this time with me. Not to mention my little Laycie would miss out on her special creative moments like the ones she’s had this morning. And it’s the same for my other children. This is what homeschooling is all about.

I must say this is not the post I intended for this morning but I guess God had different ideas for me! I’m finding following his lead is much easier than I once thought and my life is much better for it. The joys of my days are found in the Love He has blessed me with.

What is joyful to you today??

ARTistic Pursuits {Crew Review}

December 7, 2011 by Dana

ARTistic Pursuits is an art curriculum created to teach children about art as they learn how to create art. This is more than just art instruction, it is art education at it’s best. ARTistic Pursuits makes art FUN for all ages, in an understanding and creative way.

For this review, we were given a copy of ARTistic Pursuits book one for grades K-3. This book is an introduction to Visual Art through art instruction, master works and 32 lesson projects. Each lesson teaches an artistic skill, shows a particular style of art and artist and allows a creative, age appropriate project to build a child’s artistic skills.

My children really enjoyed the projects in this book. My middle daughter, my artist, particularly loved learning about the different styles of art and differing artists that share her talent. We were able to incorporate this art program with the curriculum we have already been using with ease to increase our educational development in a challenging, yet fun way.

ARTistic Pursuits is a wonderful program to use for any family, homeschooling or not. This program could be used as a supplement for any artistic student in addition to art programs provided through a public school, over the summer or for at home instruction. It’s easy for any parent to teach, even one not skilled in art instruction such as myself.

ARTistic Pursuits curriculum is available online for around $42.95 per book. For more reviews of this product please visit the TOS Homeschool Review Crew blog.

*Disclaimer – ARTistic Pursuits was provided for free by the TOS Homeschool Review Crew in exchange for my honest opinion in a review on this blog. No money was exchanged for this review.